ReactOS 0.4.8 released

With software specifically leaving NT5 behind, ReactOS is expanding its target to support NT6+ (Vista, Windows 8, Windows 10) software. Colin, Giannis and Mark are creating the needed logic in NTDLL and LDR for this purpose. Giannis has finished the side-by-side support and the implicit activation context, Colin has changed Kernel32 to accept software made for NT6+, and Mark keeps working on the shim compatibility layer. Although in a really greenish and experimental state, the new additions in 0.4.8 should start helping several software pieces created for Vista and upwards to start working in ReactOS. Microsoft coined the term backwards compatibility, ReactOS the forward compatibility one.

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Unfortunately their rate of progress has been pretty slow, to the point the most applications no longer support XP or 2003.

But having an OS that is effectively much like NT4-5 in familiarity while being able to run NT6 applications will be nice.

I think the next big things they’ll need to implement are SMP and better support for graphics drivers. The memory subsystem still isn’t quite as robust as real XP either (XP can page file all day long and doesn’t leak memory like a sieve like ReactOS during downloads etc…).

I was intending to test out some commercial software I use (Wonderware Indusoft) and did get it downloaded but it took a few tries finally I figured out I could close out firefox and it would pause my download every 300MB or so…. till I hit 1.1GB also 7zip would crash halfway through extracting because of OOM so I just extracted half the files at a time. In the end it didn’t work as the securekey dongle driver wouldn’t install.

Eh, as long as it can run apps wine can’t in a virtual machine ReactOS will remain highly useful for a lot of people. Now if they can get an RDP server/client, and Samba 4/DHCP/DNS server ports completed this thing could be a useful lightweight DC/Terminal server/jump box.

How much cost a Windows XP license from a refurbished PC ? 0, nada, nothing. How much for Windows 7 or even 10 from Lizengo ? I leave it to you finding by yourself, “you’ll be amazed by what you’ll discover”.

The OP wasn’t going on the internet. You don’t necessarily stumble upon a malware if you follow some easy rules. Windows Defender still works on XP and prevent already a large broad of attacks. I do have a 2000/XP machine and use it to go on the internet, mostly to check some compatibilities, never had a problem, just watch your steps.

Like vaccines, it doesn’t prevent you from being cautious. Common sense would I say.

Kochise: I see you haven’t changed much, still criticizing alternative and hobby OSes. These people are doing something they feel passionate about, it doesn’t matter to them if you don’t like it. Why don’t you create something instead of trying to tear down someone’s project?

[q]Criticizing an OS in development for 20 years and still haven’t reached a stable level for even base functionalities like memory management, I beg to differ and express some doubts.

Because it shows how complex NT memory management is, which leads to difficulties when correctly implementing it. [/q]

There sure are reasons, why ReactOS is still so horribly unstable after 20 years. The problem is: That doesn’t make it any more likely that it will become more mature any time soon.

That’s not valid logic. The problem is manpower, limited time per person to dedicate to the project and limited persons interested in helping.

The development model isn’t the problem as showed by many well known projects, the license isn’t the problem, the “moving goalpost” argument is just stupid, documentation of Windows NT is adequate if lacking in detail (=needs more effort).

The previous logic was valid. Its a difficult task, and they aren’t making progress reaching stability. When I first found react, windows 98 was the target. They never reached the level of stability or comparability with win 98 apps. Never. Win 98, the paragon of stability … Instead, because they were so far behind, they changed the target. fell far behind, changed the target, fell behind, changed the target.

No diss on them, its insanely difficult to do what they are doing and don’t have many people helping. But it is a moving goalpost. Linux, free bsd, even haiku or free dos, have more attainable goals.

I disagree, it’s only a problem if your goal is to be 100% compatible with the current latest release of Microsoft Windows. None of these projects have to have that as a goal. Hell if you made a project who’s goal was compatibility with just Windows 95/98 software including 3D accelerated graphics for DirectX 1-6 you’d still have a market. These projects should be targeting market segments that Microsoft has left behind if they want to gain marketshare. The rl. In my case for example, ReactOS can already be used to run an older version of 3D Studio Max and Caligari trueSpace. These are applications I need because I’m working with legacy game content. Sure it might not be “sexy” but it’s a market and ReactOS fills it. The more of these market segments of people left behind when Microsoft has moved on that ReactOS can fill. The more useful and relevant it becomes. For exaeality is you will never reach 1:1 compatibility with Windows, unless Windows stops being developed. However that doesn’t stop ReactOS from being useful. In my case for example, ReactOS can already be used to run an older version of 3D Studio Max and Caligari trueSpace. These are applications I need because I’m working with legacy game content. Sure it might not be “sexy” but it’s a market and ReactOS fills it. The more of these market segments of people left behind when Microsoft has moved on that ReactOS can fill. The more useful and relevant it becomes. For example, did you know that none of the commercial Virtual Machine implementations can actually Run Warhammer Dark Omen with 3D acceleration? It’s because they all implement 3D support for DirectX, by using WINE’s Direct3D to OpenGL translation layer which doesn’t support Direct3D Immediate Mode. The same goes for applications which use Glide. There’s a market of retro PC gamers sitting there waiting to be tapped. Sure it’s not glamorous but it’s a segment everyone is currently ignoring. ReactOS, DOSBox, KVM, and WINE are the only hope these people have of ever getting their software to run. Most support for Windows 95/98 Virtual Machines is atrocious or just missing entirely.

On stability, it is improving. Case in point, previous releases would hang when copying thousands of files in Filezilla, the new release doesn’t. The stability is improving. Moving goalposts and stability are separate things, the kernel/core systems are not necessarily used for forward compatibility, quite often libraries are all that’s needed to make a newer program work with the existing core of the OS. Over time the core has been getting more stable, fewer hangs/blue screens overall are what I’ve been experiencing, along with faster performance.

Eh, as long as it can run apps wine can’t in a virtual machine ReactOS will remain highly useful for a lot of people.

My experience is not that ReactOS can run software that Wine can’t.

Also, are you not joking when you say reactos will “remain highly useful for a lot of people”? I have been following its development since 2003 or so, and until today, it is only good for playing with it for some minutes when a new release comes out, but I haven’t made it to run on any real machine for many years now (When they began, there was no virtualbox so the only way of testing was on real hardware, which kind of worked back then, but all but failed in recent years. ROS is probably the most unstable OS I have ever seen, despite more than 20 years of development.

As far as I know Wine and ReactOS work together (would be crazy not to)

ReactOS uses WINE, but I am not sure that WINE in turn benefits from ReactOS in some way.

WINE have in the past at least. Haven’t followed lately however given that they are both open source projects with compatible licenses working on the same type of software I don’t see why that would have changed. They both benefit from that.

I wasn’t joking at all, ReactOS in it’s current form has better support for Caligari trueSpace than WINE does. So sorry that your experience with it hasn’t been a success, but in my experience and use case it’s been more useful than wine. Remember, ReactOS implements its own window management system closer to Microsoft’s than to X11. This allows it to do things WINE can’t/doesn’t do yet. ReactOS is more than just WINE + an NT-like kernel. It implements it’s own systems as well. As the networking support on ReactOS grows it gets more useful. At some point it’ll make a pretty decent fileserver if you’re used to running FTP/Samba servers at LAN parties on Windows.

I think the they have a leak in their winstock implementation as or perhaps the file system or cache subsystem… as whenever you download something large it seems to leak like a sieve and crash but if you avoid doing things like that it’s pretty stable.